I've been thinking about this plant a lot, lately.
It's a Golden Currant, a shrub native to the Pacific Northwest. When my son planted it, it was a delicate stem, about as tall as my pinkie. It was crowned with two, tiny, wrinkled, leaves. I didn't hold much hope for its survival. A few seasons later, it's a couple feet tall, boasts multiple branches, and it's decked with lush green leaves and dainty yellow blossoms. I'm impressed and delighted by its growth. It's flourishing and soon it will bloom.
I think about this plant because of how beautifully it illustrates the development of a living organism, well-established in an appropriate climate, rooting into the soil where it is planted, sustaining each season's shifting resources, to then stretch, leaf, and ultimately bear fruit. It's the metaphor I return to when reflecting on our family. We are a well-established plant that began as a tenuous little sprout.
The three of us have been in this house for six years. In recent months, I’ve recognized the depth and breadth of our growth and the benefits we produce together. The first place I see it is in N.
I know that a lot of the changes I see in N are due to his own maturing with age. But that growth is supported by the place that we have reached as a family and the parenting that J and I practice. N is open with both of us about his feelings, concerns, goals, and successes. I used to worry about N’s relationship with J. I felt like I was bridging and mediating the two of them and all of their communication ran through me. Now, I overhear conversations and collaborations between them that have nothing to do with me. They have trust and rapport all their own.
I also see changes in how J and I relate. A little over a year ago we thought our marriage was done, but N didn’t want us to separate and break up the household. So we each dug a little deeper into ourselves, as individuals, and our communication and connection as a couple. We have new habits that keep us talking about our inner, personal stuff, along with the day-to-day pragmatics of running a house and raising a young man. My favorites are the groggy early mornings together over coffee and the evening chats before bed. It’s as if that liminal state, between awake and asleep, we can be more honest, authentic, and sometimes silly, than during the more alert hours of the day.
I’m savoring this new, established phase of our growth as a family. I love that N will choose that we sit at the kitchen table for dinner together, rather than hovering over the coffee table in front of the tv. I relish the days when we all play hooky from school and jobs, and we’re all at home working on projects or hanging out. I look forward to our vacations, exploring new places or revisiting familiar favorites, and photographing the requisite family selfies along the way.
I’m grateful. I’m pausing to acknowledge and celebrate the attention, intention, and deliberate work that brought us from being three people occupying a house to an established family, engaged and responsive to each other, co-creating and sharing life together.
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